Letter: Not too late to reverse climate change damage

“It’s late in the game, but not too late,” climatologist Dr. Michael Mann said in “The Madhouse Effect,” his best-selling book on climate change and what we need to do about it.

The game Mann is referring too is global warming caused by a century of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.

According to this renowned climatologist, we still have the opportunity to slow down and eventually end the release of carbon emissions in time to avoid the worst climate change disturbances to the planet.

There still are a few deniers who claim it’s not real, or if it is, it’s not us. Their voices, although shrill and serving as shills for the Koch brothers and Heritage Foundation, are shrinking in number and influence. The majority of Americans no longer deny human-caused climate change. The confirmation of a warming world is evidenced in droughts and wildfires, stronger storms and repeated flooding, and rising sea levels inundating coastal cities.

Pressure on elected leaders from environmental organizations and concerned citizens is beginning to pay off. The political system is responding to the will of the people.

More than 4 out of 5 people recently surveyed support the goals of the Green New Deal, and at the end of the 115th Congress, a bipartisan bill, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, was introduced in both the House and Senate.

This bipartisan bill significantly will reduce carbon emissions, and the fees collected on carbon emissions will be allocated to all Americans to spend how they choose. The government will not keep any of the fees collected, so the size of the government will not grow.

With the expectation that House and Senate Republicans and Democrats will reintroduce the bipartisan bill in the next session of Congress, these climate action bills should give us hope that Mann was right when he said, “It’s late in the game, but not too late.”